


Five Words... Alice

by Sally M (sallymn)



Series: Five Words [2]
Category: Alice - Svankmajer, Alice In Wonderland - Carroll
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-01
Updated: 2009-12-01
Packaged: 2017-10-04 01:17:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sallymn/pseuds/Sally%20M
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For a challenge I was given five words and had to write ficlets on each. The words were <em>bourbon, mannequin, goldfish, lacy</em> and <em>thunderstorm</em>...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Words... Alice

**Five Words... Alice**

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**Bourbon**

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As she watched the White Knight go off his horse again... three times, in fact, once to the right, once to the left, and - as before - pitching forward straight over its head and into another ditch - she was not surprised at all. He did so remind her of two gentle, shaggy-haired men, the Reverend who told such diverting stories... and the American visiting professor who helped to fuelled the Reverend's stories with his prized bottles of 'bourbon whiskey', only for adults. But as her father's child, Alice knew, anything called whiskey tended to bring tumbles and stumbles as well as flights of fancy... 

****

  

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**Mannequin**

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_Oh bother, _she thought, _I really shouldn't have done that._

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Drinking where it said 'drink me' and eating where it said 'eat me' had seemed sensible, but now here she was, getting bigger and bigger and stiffer and stiffer and... waxier. Like one of the waxwork mannequins Nanny had taken them to when she was little. 

****

Ordinary little, of course, not that curious and curiouser little that had felt like being one of her own dolls, and had turned into this curious and curiouser big. She rather thought that most of the waxworks had been of Historical Persons too, like all those queens who had rather carelessly had their heads cut off, and was a little concerned that someone might want to cut hers off as well, if they thought she was a mannequin of a careless queen. 

****

It was rather hard to know what to do next, because mannequins didn't eat, of course, and that made getting little again rather a problem. So she decided to wait and see if the White Rabbit came back and knew what to do. 

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She waited... and waited... 

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_Being a waxwork is_ not _very exciting,_ she thought two days later. 

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**Goldfish**

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_'Twas the Voice of the Goldfish I heard it declaim, "My bowl is too small, I must swim round ag-"'_

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"That's not what you told the Mock Turtle!" the Owl complained. 

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"I know," Alice said fretfully, "but someone ate all the lobsters. I don't suppose you know who it was?" 

****

The Owl looked shifty and held a dish up to hide its face; the Panther looked blank and wiped a bit of sauce from its nose with one paw. 

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"Oh well," Alice went on, "it was only a poem I dreamed of." 

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"And this isn't?" the Owl mumbled into his dish. 

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**Lacy**

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Alice rather wished she had known she was meeting such grand people as a Queen and a King, and a Duchess and even a White Rabbit, and appearing at a trial. She would have worn her best pinafore, the one with the lacy flower trimming. 

****

On the other hand, someone might have wanted to paint the lace flowers red, and Nanny would have been very cross - she might have wanted to cut some heads off herself. At least this apron had pockets. 

****

And despite everything, she was glad she had, well, borrowed the tarts. After all, _they_ didn't say 'Eat Me', did they? So they had to be safe to eat. 

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And then she heard a tiny voice from the left-hand pocket... 

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**Thunderstorm**

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"Now that's quite enough!" Alice scolded. 

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The thundercloud loomed big and black and... feathery... its rumble of thunder sounded peculiarly like a squawk. 

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"You're in the wrong story." 

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The thundercloud cocked a head and rumbled - or cawed - again. 

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"You need to go back through the looking glass and try to at least to look like a crow, or how is the battle to be stopped?" 

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The thundercloud shrugged what might have looked a little like wings. 

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"Go on," she said firmly, giving it what might have been a push, except the feathery wings weren't real and her hand went through. "I shall be there... in six years or thereabouts." 

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**

**\- the end -**

**

**Author's Note:**

> I was given the five words as a challenge :) I used a mixture of the Carroll books and the 1988 film by Jan Svankmajer for inspiration.


End file.
